


Freesia

by eirinen_wlanog



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Angst, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Gluhen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:19:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirinen_wlanog/pseuds/eirinen_wlanog
Summary: I always come across his picture when I least expect it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Gryvon for the Valentine's Day 2007 Yaoi Challenge on LJ.

I always come across his picture when I least expect it. There have been times when I've gone for days or weeks without hearing of him, but just when the pain starts to fade a little, that's usually when I stumble on an article about him in the newspaper or catch a glimpse of him giving a press conference on the evening news that makes the old wounds rip right back open again and hurt just as much as they did before.

I originally just stopped by the bookstore today to get a new mystery novel—now that our busy season's over the flower shop is fairly quiet and I figured I could use something to read during the down times. But as I was on my way up to the cash register, I decided on the spur of the moment to be nice and get a soccer magazine for Ken, and in my quest for the sports section of the magazine racks I noticed a painfully familiar name in bright, bold characters on the cover of a tabloid.

The name is the kid's, of course. I don't know anyone else who's famous enough to be on the cover of a national magazine. The way the racks are set up it's impossible to see whether or not there's a picture of him on there too, but I suspect there is, and I don't know how long I've been standing here wondering whether I want to look. In the end I decide that no matter how painful it is, I actually do want to know how he's doing. So I take a deep breath to steel myself and pull the tabloid from the rack.

There is, as I'd thought, a photograph. In it, he has his arm around a woman—some wealthy businessman's daughter—and they're smiling like they're in love as the headlines speculate about how soon they'll get engaged.

I want to be happy for him. After all, even when we were sleeping together I've always hoped he'd eventually find a nice girl to marry and settle down with. But something in his expression stops me.

It's his eyes. They look... dead.

His eyes used to be the thing I loved most about him. His intelligence, his optimism, his loyalty to his friends, his infinitely subtle sense of humor...all of those things were wonderful too, but it was his eyes that really made me fall in love with him. Pure blue and wide as saucers, they always managed to make him look younger and more innocent than he was. And when he smiled, they lit up so brightly you couldn't help but smile back. At least, I never could.

I'm not, as a rule, too interested in men. The sex is usually better, but the way they tend to behave puts me off. While, with the exception of my relationship with Asuka back when I was a P.I., I've never exactly been what you'd call monogamous, I like to think that I've never slept with anyone I didn't have strong feelings for. I like my partners to feel the same, to truly love me while we're together even if it's just a one-night stand. In my experience, most guys don't operate that way: when it comes to casual sex they're into it for physical pleasure and nothing else. Women tend to be more emotional, to be incapable of separating sex from love, and for that reason I'd pretty much sworn off my own gender by the time I turned sixteen. They weren't worth dealing with—no matter how hot or good in bed they were, to me the most important aspect of sex is the emotional connection, something I never felt with any of the male lovers I had as a teenager.

I knew from the start that the kid would be different. You couldn't spend five minutes with him and not realize how sentimental he was compared to most other guys. For that alone I was immediately fascinated by him, and it didn't take long before I found myself attracted to him as well. I vowed then never to touch him, because of his age (old enough, certainly, for sex, but young enough to be impressionable and maybe too young to know what he wanted) and our relationship as coworkers. But a few months later he confessed he was attracted to me too, and he was so clearly sure of himself that my vow was quickly forgotten—we went to bed together within the week.

That was the start of the second-longest relationship I've ever had. I didn't originally mean for it to be a long-term thing, just a tutorial of sorts for him: better, I thought, that he lose his virginity to a mature, experienced friend who cared about him and would be gentle than to one of his classmates or to some faceless stranger in a bar. Nevertheless, I ended up falling for him, hard.

Sometimes, lately, I start to wish that I hadn't. He was a wonderful friend and an amazing lover and I wouldn't trade my memories of the time we had together for anything—but I can't help but think how much less painful it would have been to lose him if I hadn't loved him so much in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I always knew we wouldn't be lovers forever, and I was okay with that. We agreed up front that our relationship wouldn't be exclusive, and I even encouraged him to go out with girls, because that's what kids his age should be doing. I wanted him to someday outgrow me and move on, to have a wife and children and a job he could be proud of and all those other things I never will.

There's no question that he's moved on. If the headlines are any indication, he'll be married soon enough, and children will almost certainly follow. He's rich beyond my wildest dreams, and though he's still a few years away from the minimum age for election, the media is already talking about the possibility that he could become Japan's youngest prime minister. He's got everything in the world going for him.

If only a few things were different, I muse as I slide the tabloid back into the rack where I found it, I'd be able to let him go without regret. If he were marrying a girl like Sakura and not an heiress whose father's support could help him in his career. If his money had come from his own hard work and not been given to him by his family's bloodstained hands. If I were sure that politics was something he actually wanted to do and not something his grandfather has pressured him into.

If there were any trace of the person I loved still left in his eyes.

I remember one night when he came running into my room crying after a mission. The mission had been to kill Hirofumi Takatori, and after confirming his suspicions that he was the target's long-lost younger brother, the kid had not only passed up the chance to kill Takatori himself, but prevented Ken and Aya from killing him as well. In fact, he explained between sobs, he'd let the target go, and he was scared to death that none of us would ever forgive him—either for letting Takatori go or for himself being a member of the Takatori family.

I reassured him that he was being silly. Of course we'd forgive him—I understood perfectly why he did what he did. After all, if you've lived your whole life without a family and then suddenly discover you've got one, it's only natural to want answers, answers you can't really get out of someone who's dead. Ken, I told him, had probably forgiven him already. And Aya, I said, had a stick up his ass, but would eventually come around. In short, he had nothing to worry about. We could all see how different he was from his father and brothers, and he was in no danger of being lumped in with them just by accident of blood.

I cannot believe now how wrong I was that night. It happened so quickly no one could see it coming or stop it from happening, but Omi Tsukiyono, the cheerful, innocent-looking young man I fell in love with, is gone now. In his place is Mamoru Takatori, aspiring politician and truly his father's son. This, I know, is what the kid was most afraid of, and I'm only glad he's not around anymore to see what he's become.

 


End file.
